Tag: pace academy

Eager to go green? The Environmental Consortium’s 10th Annual Conference is coming to Pace PLV on November 8 and 9

In celebration of the 10th year anniversary, the Environmental Consortium of Colleges and Universities will return to the theme of campus greening and the role of higher education on November 8–9 in Pleasantville as part of the 10th Annual Conference. Much has changed in the sustainability landscape since the 2006 campus greening conference, so this year’s program will highlight current trends, best practices, and curriculum design.

Join teams from around the region in keynote, plenary, breakout, and poster sessions. Share new ideas, gain renewed inspiration, and bring back plans.

Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies Director Michelle Land will give the welcome address, with a plenary on preparing campuses for an uncertain future featuring Andrew Revkin, senior fellow for environmental understanding at the Pace Academy and New York Times DotEarth blogger on November 8.

Keynotes include Gus Speth, Professor of Law, Vermont Law School, and David Hales, President and CEO of Second Nature.

All Pace faculty, staff, students, and administrators qualify for the team discount. Simply enter promotional code TEAM2013 when you register.

The mission of the Environmental Consortium of Colleges & Universities is to harness higher education’s intellectual and physical resources to advance regional, ecosystem-based environmental research, teaching, and learning with a special emphasis on the greater Hudson-Mohawk River watershed. Spearheaded and hosted by Pace University, the Consortium’s headquarters is situated within the Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies.

Last year, the Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies made major waves with its University-wide water campaign: the .007% campaign. This academic year, they’re moving from what we drink to what we eat, launching the FoodYou Campaign.

Pace Academy’s FoodYou Campaign is about the way that our choices, as individuals and as a society, intersect with the environment. During this 2013-2014 awareness initiative, we will examine some of the many pieces that are set in motion by what we put on our plates. Through events and partnerships, the campaign will broaden the Pace Community’s understanding of our global food system. We’ll be talking about the FoodYou engineer, grow, kill, need, take, waste, trade, and share. Food has always been a bridge between people and their environment. Today, our food choices are not only influenced by our region, personal budgets, and culture but also international trade agreements, government subsidies and regulations, and climate change.

The FoodYou Campaign will shine a light on our system’s resources, production, and waste through a diverse set of educational and action-oriented events. Events will feature experts on animal welfare and genetic engineering in agriculture, as well as opportunities for students to visit an organic farm and local farmers markets. During the spring semester, Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies’ mock hearing on C.A.F.O.s in NY will give students the chance to influence policy on industrial livestock production.

But how do you get involved NOW? Well, FoodYousers, on Thursday, October 10, award-winning author Jonathan Safran Foer will join the Pace Academy via virtual classroom to discuss his book Eating Animals, which he wrote while exploring today’s food systems and presents what many consider the most important popular critique of industrial farming. For those on the Westchester Campus, head to the Miller Lecture Hall from 12:45 p.m.–1:30 p.m. In NYC, Lecture Hall West from 2:15 p.m.–3:00 p.m.

Do you believe water pollution is illegal? Cage-free hens are contented animals? Climate change is threatening the United States with more hurricanes? Says who? Based on what? Compared to what? Join the conversation on EarthDesk, Pace Academy’s blog.

Join the conversation on EarthDesk, a blog launched by Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies. Examine environmental issues critically through a diversity of disciplines, with special attention to the global water crisis, animal welfare, and climate change.

EarthDesk convenes thinkers and doers from our own campuses, the region, and the world, representing a host of interests–from law to art, business to the sciences, technology to human health, and more. The objective: to advance creative thought and innovative solutions. Read it, comment, follow it, like it, share it!

Do you believe water pollution is illegal? Cage-free hens are contented animals? Climate change is threatening the United States with more hurricanes? Says who? Based on what? Compared to what? Join the conversation on EarthDesk, Pace Academy’s new blog.

Join the conversation on EarthDesk, a new blog launched by Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies. Examine and discuss environmental issues, innovations, and opportunities from the perspective of a University’s unique role in society: as a hub for critical thinking, a laboratory for testing ways to advance human progress, and an intellectual resource dedicated to nature and community. Read it, comment, follow it, like it, share it!

In the era of online connectivity, that role is global as well as trans-disciplinary. EarthDesk convenes thinkers and doers from the Pace University campuses, the greater New York region, and the world, across a host of disciplines–from law to art to the sciences, and more. Help advance creative thought and innovative solutions regarding topics that touch every life on the planet.

Experts at the Pace Academy discuss what it means to restore Westchester’s carnivores to their native habitats and how it will affect the county’s human inhabitants.

On Thursday, October 11 join the Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies as they gather together to discuss what it means to rewild Westchester County and what the restoration of carnivores will mean for the community.

Carnivores provide essential ecological benefits and play a unique role in preserving and maintaining ecosystems. When carnivores are locally extirpated, ecosystems are imbalanced and unhealthy. Changing landscapes and the ability of some carnivores to adapt to human-dominated settings has led to increased human-carnivore interactions in Westchester County.

Intolerance and misinformation can impede the restoration and conservation of these important animals. Efforts to rewild Westchester with carnivores must consider the ecological, ethical, and social aspects of predators and people coexisting.

Conrad Reining, eastern program director of the Wildlands Network, will open the forum with a keynote address that will introduce the idea of thinking “eco-regionally” and the importance of large, well-connected habitats. After which, Michelle Land, director of the Pace Academy, will moderate a roundtable discussion featuring Reining, Dyson Professor Melissa Grigione, PhD, director of the graduate program in Environmental Science and co-founder of Bordercats Working Group, and Pace Law Professor and Director of the Brazil-American Institute for Law and Environment David Cassuto. These experts will explore how we as a community can embrace and manage this phenomenon and how wildlife managers and urban planners can rewild Westchester with predator species, while also mitigating avoiding harmful impacts to the County’s citizens.

The name’s Academy. Pace Academy. This year, the Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies wants you to keep your head on water as they launch the Pace .007% Campaign. >>Read More

In the short time it takes you to read these paragraphs, 3 children in the developing world will die, and 37 Americans will become ill, because of water pollution.

It does not have to be that way. You can be the difference.

The Pace University .007% Campaign (Double O-7 Campaign) will spend the 2012-2013 academic year raising awareness about the importance, and scarcity, of fresh clean water.

Why .007%? Because of the total water on the planet, that’s the miniscule amount readily available to us humans for domestic, agricultural, and industrial uses: just .007%.

Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies, with support from the GreenPace Sustainability Committee, created the .007% Campaign to illustrate the real value of water in our everyday lives, and the lives of those in regions of the planet where a flowing faucet is a foreign thing.

The .007% Campaign is multifaceted. It is about health, environment, business, economics, law, technology, education, and our daily habits. It is local and it is global. Throughout the school year, the campaign will assist with courses, club programs, and extracurricular events. Whatever you are studying or teaching, whatever campus job you hold, or club to which you belong, there is a way to participate. After all, every aspect of our lives, careers, and activities is touched by water. The only limit to being involved is the extent of your imagination.

During the fall semester watch for the .007% campaign posters that contain a fact in white print inside a blue circle. Even the best Jeopardy players will be challenged to determine the question that the fact answers. Go to the .007% website to see how well you did.

Interested students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to contact Pace Academy to figure out how they can contribute to greater awareness of water issues in their course, club, or office. For those in the Pace community already commencing this mission, we want to hear about it!

What does water mean to you and your field of study? Probably more than you think.
Get involved at www.pace.edu/007.

The new PLV Lecture Series kicks off with a provocative, behind-the-scenes look at environmental decision-making in a faltering global economy on October 18 on the PLV Campus.

How are environmental policies chosen in a failing economy? Where are the green jobs President Obama promised? Can we afford to delay action on issues such as climate change and water protection? How do we make smart choices to ensure a safe environment for current and future generations?

Please join the Pace Community at Hard Choices in Hard Times: Deciding Our Environmental Future, an exciting discussion about some of the most challenging choices of our times presented by the Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies.